Salesforce losses swell, despite rise in sales

The hosted CRM provider reported a loss of $9.82m on a 34 per cent increase in net sales to $73.6m for the three-month period to 31 July.

Loss per share also increased, up 4 cents to $0.07 on a diluted GAAP basis.

The company used the results to issue its forecast for the full year, coming in below the expectations of analysts. Salesforce expects revenue for the full year of between $773 and $777m, growth of between 32 and 33 per cent.

The company said it expected earnings per diluted share of between $1.48 and $1.51 but on a diluted non-GAAP EPS – excluding certain costs – chief executive Marc Benioff’s company expects to come in in range of $0.31 to $0.32. Wall St's money men had expected $0.34 a share.

The company’s costs are increasing as it adds more staff to sell to the enterprise, against rivals such as Oracle and SAP. ®